I have two tattoos on the inside of my elbows. They are perfectly balanced so that if I lay my arms on a table, palms up, and put my elbows together, they almost touch each other. Or if I raise my arms above my head in the ancient gesture that brings down power, the tattoos face outward with me.
Most people would say the left tattoo is "infinity." I tattooed this mark on the left, the side of mystery. This tattoo symbolizes the everliving spirit my mother passed on to me in her womb; the spirit which animates the living body, which "brings the buds in spring." and "cuts the cane and gathers the grain." The spirit which also animates the forces of decay. The left tattoo reveals the source in me of the immanent earth.
In the judeo-christian bible, there is a story where a god speaks to a man and names itself "I AM." Although I am a pagan, I have understood this story to teach me the nature of spirit and matter. My left tattoo says to me, "AM," that is "Being," or "Always Is." (English is obviously not a suitable language for explaining these things, but that is another essay.)
The right tattoo means "I." It represents what I call "transcendent" in myself, just as the left says "AM" and represents the immanent. My definition of transcendent is not that it is separate and somehow above nature and matter. Rather the right tattoo is the part of me that lives once; a single, unique lifetime who will never again be. The transcendant is apart from natural laws only in that the unique part of me does not return after decay.
If you look at my tattoos sideways'or as Starhawk writes "acrostic" you can see that they are the same glyph. Imagine the two closed circles of the infinity tattoo opening and the four sections gliding past each other like dancers. See the shape they form?
The glyph opens and closes like the moon's phases to form both tattoos. The transcendant tattoo shows this relationship even more explicitly because it is obviously a waxing crescent, a waning crescent, and a full moon. The dark moon, of course, is unseen, but is conspicuous in its absence. Even the transcendent part of me is a reflection of the Immanent Goddess. Cycles--like those of the moon--may repeat, but no one lives any moment exactly like another. I live my unique life, and yet my tattoo of it holds the mystery of forever and ever.
My tattoos guide me and console me. I am not alone, yet I am unique. I am humbled, yet I am The Goddess. As the ancient blessing goes, "all between my hands belongs to the goddess."